Author Archives: Spaunder

The productivity dilemma 🏋🏿‍♂️

When I heard two YouTubers talking about how to be more productive, my takeaway was that if we put the journey before the destination, our efforts become more palatable. It got me thinking about the idea that granulating the task makes it easier to engage and complete. I prefer understanding that the task is is hard as I am motivated by difficulty. I think that people who have experienced hunger don’t need much to get them going.

My morning runs again!🤕

I kept thinking during my morning run if I document because I covered 5 Km or I cover 5 Km so I can blog about it. In either case, I am consistent with covering this distance on a daily basis . What makes it special is the fact that I ruptured my Achilles tendon sometime last year and underwent surgery to do a complete repair. The surgery was necessary invasive and I had titanium screws jammed into the back of my heel. I have not fully recovered and still feel like I have nails in my shoes very step I take. Completing 5km every morning while bracing through this pain is what gives me the perception of superhuman strength. Morale of the paragraph is the you will never hear the end of this 5km run

Communication 📡

I had a call from an agency that was looking to hire a Digital Project Manager for one of their partners. I have made it a habit to compliment the the question I am being asked even when it makes no sense. I often find myself telling recruiters “Good question” even when they ask me a silly question like “tell me about your weaknesses”. I don’t know why anyone will want me to talk myself down when they are trying to see if I am a good fit for a position. I don’t think most of them put enough effort into knowing you. Most of them have already made a decision from the beginning and try to eliminate you.

Day One 📚

Jcrdeible officially became a student today. I got reports that he handled it like he has been doing this forever. His teacher says he is very sociable and made friends really quick. I am so proud of him and I am confident he will do great things. I was so excited I shared his pictures with the same people twice.

Journey to Java 🚕

I wrote several lines of code today and I am almost done with CSS. I came across a self taught programmer who went from earning 35k a year to well over 125k. He reminded me of the financial rewards that could come with coding. I am motivated by money and I would do so many things for money and coding is no exception. I love money and if you think it is the root of all evil you are correct. I still love money. I believe we need to reassess the way we relate with conversations about money which is a topic for another day

There is such a thing as Polyamorous 👨‍👨‍👧‍👧

While going through my Facebook feed, I saw this article come up. Polyamorous is being in a relationship with multiple partners with everyone in that relationship consenting to their partners having other relationships. If you think that it is twisted, here is the best part; You partner could also have multiple partners who could be people of the opposite sex. All the rules in the relationship are made my those involved. This helps people to avoid sneaking out to go cheat on their partners. On a side note, Chris Rock says we are only as faithful as our options

I feel like and expert already😎

I don’t know about you guys, but after writing my third blog post, I feel like it is time to start giving blogging tips. Nobody said it should be good though, so here is what I think people are looking for every time they visit your blog

1. Entertainment: There are so many alternatives
2. Engagement: This is the tricky one
3. Education : It would be nice to learn something new

Story time: 🎶

When I woke up this morning, I bagged 5kms as usual, but for some reason, it felt a lot easier. I am tempted not to keep talking about this particular morning routine, but given that the discipline required to maintain this consistency is enormous. You guys will just have to bear with me.

During this run, I listened to interesting topic about unfair advantages. The moral of the entire video was the fact that we all have an unfair advantage, but the difference is that some people use it to succeed, while others used it to feel sorry for themselves.

A typical example of someone who came from poverty could wear it on their sleeve and happily sing to Drakes “started from the bottom and now we here” while others would complain about having to start from the bottom. There are several ways we could pick apart this school of thought, but I guess you guys get the jist. If I was going to invest in a business idea, I would pick one which had done the most with the least amount of funding

Lets talk about this 💵

Later this afternoon, while scrolling aimlessly on facebook, I came across a BBC article that talked about The republic of Ireland’s decision to pay the senior women soccer team players same as their male counterparts. I thought to myself that this is the logical thing to do, but when I opened the comments section, I came across people who were totally against it. Their reasoning was that we should pay people according to output and not gender and that this decision did not help the gender pay disparity debate. One other user went as far as reminding the other readers that not even the men on the same team gets the same pay as not all the players bring the same value and perform at a high level. That is why Lionel Messi’s salary was almost more than that of his team mates combined.

Mentorship Minutes 🤲🏿

I had the usual check-in with Ms. Acredible who wanted to know how she could be more proactive without looking like she was overreaching with her authority and nicking the chain of command. My advise was simple, always communicate your new ideas with your superior and let them know that you require their approval from implementation. That way they would appreciate your innovative thinking and feel like they are part of your innovative process. It is very close to ass kissing, but more like perineal(The part between the butt and the vag) kissing. It is a very thin line, but it is the invisible part of every Job description

I talked to Jcredible and Zcredible very briefly while Ocredible is always smiling and is growing up really quick. Jcredible starts school tomorrow and I am so proud of him.

Shooting my Shot☄️

I stalked a couple of people on Linkedin and realized that you could add up to 50 skills which will make you more visible to people scouting talents. I slid into the Dm’s of some high profile connections and they ignored me for the most part. I took my L back to my browser to continued learning how to code and it never gets easier.

I was going to use a few more lines to bitch about how I wanted things to be different, but the Google Search algorithm only optimizes content that adds value to the readers. Thank you Google.😡

The feedback so far. 🤓

I received some positive comments from Joecy who is a YouTuber of the channel Simply Joecy who thinks the blog is engaging and would want to read more from me.
Cornelius Asongwe who is the anchor of the podcast Ceejays take thinks the fact that I don’t have a niche creates suspense and you never really know what you are going to read once you get that notification. Morale of the story, keep doing you.

One more thing I learned today 💡

The two most important requirements for major success are

1. Being in the right place at the right time
2. Doing something about it

“Ray Kroc: Founder of Mcdonalds”

Hand to glove, or glove to hand?🤔

Do I spend my day trying to create content for this blog, or do I just write about how my day went? I think that because I have to share my daily activities on my blog, I modify my behavior to make it more interesting/engaging

Baby steps 🚶🏿‍♂️

I only woke up past midday and I was almost sure that I was going to call off workout for the day, but for the sake of consistency, I could not afford a gap in my routine.

I reluctantly left my bed and instead of the usual 5km, I cracked 7 kms, followed up by 50 push up and 50 deadlifts.

Walk and talk 🤌🏿

Ms. Arabela and I talked about planning and management and I offered some counsel on the challenges she would face as an administrator. I reminded her on how important it is to preserve the chain of command and not join her team members in thrashing senior administration no matter how you are tempted as it is easy for people to use that conceal their own incompetence and lack of experience

We also talked about how important it is to always remember who you are every time you find yourself in a verbally combative situation or when someone tries to undermine your authority.

We spoke about the importance of not explaining providing any type of accountability on how you run your personal life

Social Media, Again📵

I have spent more time on social media than I would love to. I watched an entire live video on facebook and I am still trying to figure out what I learnt.

I also gave social media marketing advice on one artist on how to promote his video and his response was “Must and artist do everything? Why don’t you do it bro?” I am not sure how to receive that, so I will just move on.

Startup startup🧑🏿‍💻

I recently started a company called Incredible consulting. The mission is to ethical source talent from Africa and place them in companies in the middle east. I am in communication with one of our main clients and I don’t think talks are moving fast enough, so I placed a call to Lauvet to push harder for conversations to start sooner

#I have not written a single line of code today: hope it changes; { be productive :20px rgba(0,0,0,0.23); }👈🏿This makes no sense in programming

CSS and HTML are not as hard as I imagined, but the more I learn the more questions I have, one of them being, “do I really need this?” I guess I will find out in the near future

I also remember that I have not really spoken to the Incredibles today, but I know they are doing fine.

Not today👋🏿

I am struggling to collect my thoughts and write them down. Partly because I don’t think todays is as engaging as yesterday, so I will just put you guys out of your misery by just keeping this short. If you made it right up to here, you are a champ!

Today was kinda flat, or NoT

Crushed the workout🦾

I smashed the 5km run and I did it in 57 minutes unlike the usual one hour. It took me 3 minutes less time than usual. I was closest to giving up on the first lap than I have ever in all my workout sessions.

I listened to Ali Abdaal as always to improve my notion of productivity and my most recent observation is that this guy has found a way to commercialize honesty in a way that is so refreshing to listen to.

One video where he and his brother answered question, he started off by saying that this video will not add any value to your existing experience and advised viewers to go to other youtube channels which he recommended.

That got me thinking about his his competitive spirit and came off like he was endorsing other YouTubers.

He and his brother were having a conversation about where confidence becomes arrogance and he differentiated these two adjectives by defining them.

Confidence is about understanding your ability while arrogance is believing that you are better than others. I believe that you need to believe you are better than others to compete at every level, lead or manage a group of people.

It got me thinking that admitting your intellectual ability if often considered arrogant but does not apply to physical ability and dominace

The obvious morning nap😒

Running takes a huge toll on me, combined with the fact that I started my run at about 8 pm, I don’t think I had enough sleep and needed to catch up. I had a quick nap and woke up about two hours later

Lest I forget 🧐

I kept thinking how I could work with Ali Abdaal and I thought about sending him an email. I want to be able to stand out from all the other people who are making multiple request from him and boom! I found a gap. He struggles with working out and I think he would benefit a lot from my experience from working out and all the gains and losses I have experienced

OMAD on 🔥

I had a single meal today, but doesn’t look like that’s going to be my last. Alvine called me to come and eat fufu and I am not about to turn down fufu and goat meat. I will do an extra km in the morning for the extra carbs🧢.

Productive Conversation 📲

I had a lengthy conversation with Daniel about everything from cinematography, mindset, management, accountability and business development. We also spoke about the progress his son Samuel has made as he does not only turn on his own, but he can sit up on his own without support for up to 15 minutes at a time. We have plans of working together in the nearest future to expand his business in the middle east

I also had a conversation with Didier about his sister who wants to list her products on AMazon.com and needs help with SEO. I asked for more details about the product listing and asked if they have taken out a patent to be able to list it as a branded for better visibility and discoverability. We have a lot more more work to do given that he does not even know the products she would be listing

My loving sister got an unpaid promotion. I really want to be excited but there is no pay raise. I am trying hard to act excited, but it is taking up too much of the french fries I had today( I would really need that fufu)

Fufu is key 😋

I took an Uber to Alvine’s where we finally had the long awaited fufu with DC International. We were later joined by Mama and Jayda and Jacky came right after with Salomon. This was a party already, we were going to figure out what we were celebrating later on. We had a couple of drinks and talked about our go to topic which is relationships. It was the usually loud conversations where we would talk over each other and I occasionally found myself listening to three or four people at the same time not including the voices in my head after a “few” drinks.

The major takeaway from the conversations was the fact that we need more training on how to handle our mother in-laws by communicating vividly out expectations and setting our boundaries

My religious beliefs or lack thereof was once again challenged and I reiterated that I am not atheist as I do believe that there is a God, but doubled down on the fact that Christianity did not teach Africans anything. It just repackaged everything we already knew and shoved it down our throats with. Their implementation is a topic for another day

We returned home early the next morning and I had an interesting conversation with Ms. Arabela and went to bed right after that

Take away📝

Did you know that even if you send a gift to Canada, if it exceeds 50CAD in value, it could attract a custom duty of up to 30CAD?. I sent a two Spaunder T shirts to my boy Ruff J and that is what happened. The merch is fire though

Spoiler 🚨 . The next topic is “Mind your business”